LOS ANGELES – The Kings will announce the hiring of Marc Crawford as their new head coach on Monday.

Crawford, 45, has made the playoffs in seven of his nine full seasons as a NHL coach, including 1995-96, when he won the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche, but Crawford was fired by Vancouver on April 25 after the Canucks finished with a 42-32-8 record and missed the playoffs.

The Kings reached agreement with Crawford yesterday and will introduce him at a news conference Monday morning. Crawford made $1 million last season and was considered a top candidate in the market. Crawford has a career NHL coaching record of 411 wins, 277 losses, 103 ties and 32 overtime losses.

The move is a bold, and somewhat surprising one, for the Kings, and the first big move by team President and General Manager Dean Lombardi, who has been given autonomy over all hockey decisions.

Like former Kings coach Andy Murray, Crawford is considered something of a hard-nosed disciplinarian, and also like Murray, Crawford's tenure in Vancouver ended amid criticism that players were tuning him out.

Crawford comes with an impressive résumé though, as he becomes the first coach to join the Kings after having won a Stanley Cup championship elsewhere.